Ugh, this years injuries are insane. Carson Wentz going down became the 16th team (half the league!) who have had season ending injuries or benchings. They were Super Bowl favorites until this week. He tore his ACL and stayed in the game for 4 plays, including throwing a TD. I vaguely remember Phillip Rivers doing the same thing several years back, but this is unheard of. That’s North Dakota tough.

Quick Hits:

Apparently diving at a player’s knees during the victory formation and then trying to climb into the stands to fight a fan doesn’t warrant a suspension anymore….

My second point about this, is that we’re hearing how egregious the fans’ actions were to throw drinks onto the field, yet nobody is talking about both Bennett and Jefferson literally trying to end a lineman’s season and inflict both physical and financial

The NFL will never get any credibility regarding the safety of its players if they don’t start enforcing concussion protocol rules. Tom Savage’s incident was, well, savage. But they need to be able to take out Russell Wilson caliber players if they suspect concussions.

The Pittsburgh Ravens game was one of the better ones of the year. 39-38 against bitter rivals.

How did the Patriots lose on Monday night? Looks like that Gronk suspension actually meant something.

Packers almost lost to the Browns, needed a 14 point comeback just to take it into OT! But Aaron Rodgers is back baby!!!

Alright, I know I promised at the beginning of the season I wouldn’t dissect plays or sequences, but the Jaguars and Chargers game was just too crazy to not address. If you know what happened, skip this, but otherwise it’s worth reading! Let’s set the scene. Chargers up 17-14 with 2:51 left in the game, they are just punting the ball to Jacksonville.

After 49 seconds and crossing midfield, Bortles throws an interception. Should be game over, right?

1st play, Chargers Fumble! Jags run it back for a score, but it’s reversed. But hey, they have the ball in FG range already

Hold your horses, at the 22 yard line (so a 39 yard Field Goal), Bortles throws ANOTHER interception. Game over, right?

Nope, Jags have all 3 timeouts since they fumbled the first play last time. 3 runs and 3 timeouts later, there’s 1:08 in the game and Chargers have to punt

Josh Lambo, ex Charger, nails a short FG to tie the game as time expires. Overtime

Jags punt first possession

Chargers throw deep and it’s caught by Travis Benjamin only to be ripped out of his hands and ruled an interception. Guy runs it back 51 yards and gets tackled at the 2 yd line

Now fun with penalties. There’s a 15 yard penalty on the INT for taunting. Ball at the 17. Jags go nowhere in 3 plays and line up to kick a field goal, but there’s a delay of game on the defense, march the ball forward 5 yards.

Field Goal is BLOCKED! But trickles barely over the uprights. Jags win! BUT, had that delay of game not been called, the ball would have fallen short.

Even though they are division rivals, I feel just terrible for the Cardinals. I know every fan base minus maybe the Patriots has the “woe is me” approach, but the Cardinals can definitely be up there. They’ve had YEARS of mediocrity, never in the playoffs but too good for the #1 pick. All of a sudden they get Kurt Warner, and have a Super Bowl win locked down only to have heartbreak happen. They’ve been solid since, but have lost several playoff games. They finally get Adrian Peterson, who absolutely goes off in his resurgence. Enough so that Larry Fitz was talking about the “rings” they would have had if AP had been there the whole time. Flash forward 1 week, Palmer gets hurt and is out for the season, Bruce Arians (a coaching genius) is talking about not returning, and AP regresses to Saints-like numbers. They were a playoff caliber team as of last week, and it looks like they’ll lock up pick #8 again.

Stat of the Week:

Bears CB Eddie Jackson is the first defensive player to have 2 75+ yard defensive return TD’s in a game.

Stat of the Week #2:

There are 3 QB’s in the league who have thrown for more INT’s than TD’s this season (looking at at least 75 attempts). Two of them play for Cleveland…Fun fact, I decided to save a stat for next week but didn’t want to re-number all of these. I had to come up with one more stat, which is how I discovered this gem!

Well we got rid of all the riff-raff (well mostly, sorry Texans). Sort of a rough week of games, really none were super competitive minus the 1st half of the Giants and Packers game. All 4 home teams won, and yours truly went 3-1 in picks, with the only miss-step on thinking the Lions would actually put up a fight. The weekend can be summed up in one run-on sentence. Bill O’Brien has been to the playoffs with 3 different QB’s has still won 2 playoff games, the Lions can’t win a playoff game on the road, Matt Moore got smoked worse than the Dolphins did, and Aaron Rodgers is the deadliest weapon in the game. We should have a better slate this week at least! Every game is a rematch from earlier in the year.

Seattle at Atlanta– Rematch of earlier this season, when Seattle won 26-24 on a questionable pass interference call. This could be an interesting game, you could really see it as a Seattle rout, an Atlanta rout, or a very close game. Reminds you of the 2012 game where Russell Wilson came onto the scene, and nearly had a huge comeback win in Atlanta. Once again, depends on which Seattle team shows up. I see the score flipping, and Falcons win 26-24 (on a missed Steven Haushka game winning kick).

Hard to believe, but we’re already to the halfway point of the NFL season (each team has played 8 games, some 9). We’ll look at some 2nd half predictions of course, but it has been quite the crazy season so far!

Rams at Vikings:

I had this one pegged as the matchup of the week, because the winner of the game would be put into the #6 seed of the playoffs. Also, I had the good fortune of being at the game, my 3rd NFL game of the season!!! The offenses were sluggish, but the game offered a ton of storylines and ended up being pretty intense. The Vikes took a quick 10-0 lead, but then the Rams scored a TD. Being against the wind, the Rams opted to go for 2 and missed (points and wind would definitely come into play later). We then saw Greg the Leg hit his career long 61 yard field goal with the wind at his back, which looked like it could have been good from 70. The Rams were actually up at halftime, but the Vikes came back and took the lead. Then it was the Rams turn, they missed a long FG 1:45 left, but used their timeouts to get the ball back. They drove down and kicked a 53 yard FG to take it into OT. Once again the wind came into play, and Mike Zimmer made a gutsy call to defer to take the wind. As a Rams fan, I thought this was circa Marty Morningwheg who deferred and had the other team march down and kick a game winning FG. It was especially confusing since Shaun Hill was now in, and hadn’t hardly moved the ball at all in the 4th quarter. But the Rams went 3 and out, and the Vikes were able to kick the game winning FG. Super exciting game to be at!

Well Week 1 is over and we all know where our teams are going to end up. I love how some shows are already panicking about the fates of their teams this early, so this installment will have me doing the same.

Topsy Turvy AFC East:

There are 3 things that are certain in this life; death, taxes, and the Patriots winning the AFC East…Well for the first time since Tom Brady came in the league in 2001, the Patriots are alone in last place! Miami pulled quite an upset against the Patriots, scoring 23 unanswered points and shutting the Patriots out in the 2nd half with two strip sacks on Brady. Buffalo also pulled quite the upset, going into Chicago and winning it in OT. I’m not sure I can handle the playoffs without Brady, but a nice January Miami game will sure be fun to watch! Continue Reading

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About FMQB

FMQB is a blog for football fans, by a football fan. Each week I try to show some insights into several games and interesting statistics while also bringing humor to the mix. Join me for some fun by taking a quick break every week to re-live the best game in the world.